RESTAURANT REVIEW

Margaux

5 W. Eighth Street
212-321-0111

Every boutique hotel craftily fabricated out of an old fleabag needs a craftily fabricated, faux-European cafe. But are the dining millions really clamoring for yet one more in a city awash in French, Italian and British simulacra?

Sean MacPherson’s new Marlton Hotel and its restaurant, Margaux, put some juice back in faded West Eighth Street. Both inn and eatery are pretty, if precious, while Margaux’s American-“Mediterranean” menu is often quite good.

But months of hysterical hype for what MacPherson calls a “neighborhood” place set my teeth grating. Because “neighborhood” means that every celebrity drop-in — Benedict Cumberbatch! Sky Ferreira! — wafts on the media winds, and the real goal is for scenemakers to offer up their livers in exchange for seats. (No reservations taken except for hotel guests.)

The Marlton’s finely wrought noshing, boozing and slumbering spaces flow sexily from one to the next — a luxe warren from which Beat novelist Jack Kerouac, who hung at the hotel circa 1950, would not have taken inspiration for “On the Road.”

Booths are spacious, but ordinary tables are so tight that merely shifting your weight can invite a groping lawsuit. In early days, bulky coats hung like slain mammoths from pole hooks. You can now check them. If only management saw the light when it comes to illumination: Colorfully composed dishes are impossible to discern in the gloom.

A compelling, $19 “farmer’s board” of crisp buckwheat crackers with spreads of red quinoa tabouli, spicy sweet potato, avocado hummus and near-liquefied beets cues the quasi-Mediterranean menu (all choices but one under $30 and many below $20) from chefs Michael Reardon and Jeremy Blutstein. It touches the requisite organic, seasonal and local bases with whiffs of California and Southern Europe.

Pasta master Batali has nothing to fear from over-thought, limp squid ink bucatini with lobster and Calabrian chili. But there are also a satisfying, mild-spiced vegetable curry cassoulet and fine, if familiar, fishes (arctic char, poached cod). Starters tick off a checklist of current crazes, from flan-like cauliflower custard adorned with crispy kale to flavorless fluke crudo messily mingled with blood orange.

Those who swoon over every new, hip-hotel eatery will micro-scrutinize Margaux’s dishes until the cage-free cows come home. But if they were served in a bistro on West 26th or East 84th Street, would anyone even notice?